access to abortion in its constitution, we'll take a closer look at reproductive rights around the world. i'm helena humphrey — good to have you with us. here in the us, when it comes to presidential elections, it's women who consistently vote at a higher rate than men. and while they're far from being single—issue voters, reproductive rights are expected to play a large role in the upcoming presidential election. debate has raged in the us since the supreme court rescinded the nationwide right to a termination injune 2022. but polling shows why this is proving a difficult political issue for republican presidential candidates. among all americans, some 73% support allowing abortions in the first six week of pregnancy. including 56% of those in states with the most restrictive abortion bans.

as of last month, 21 out of 50 states have either total or partial abortion bans on the books, and so, unsurprisingly, it's an issue that is playing out on the campaign trail. we wa nt we want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder. the overwhelming majority of americans, including the vast majority of republican conservatives, christians and fruit live americans, i strongly support the availability of nf for couples who are trying to have a precious little beautiful baby. i supported. republican frontrunner donald trump has been reminding his supporters that he appointed three conservative judges to the supreme court when he was president. the same judges that played a decisive role in overturning roe v wade. but, so far, he has been less clear on restrictions he would like to see. the new york times reported last month that trump privately supports a 16—week ban. something his campaign slammed as "fake news."

but we do know that the former president has previously called for exceptions for cases of rape, incest and medical emergencies. trump's republican rival, nikki haley, has taken a more moderate position, saying she believes republicans need to be "honest" about the country's appetite for abortion restrictions, and thinks it should be up to individual states. i have been watching in the news. you have had a lot of conversations about abortion. this is what i will tell you — i respectfully do not think the men know how to talk about it. when it comes to an issue like this, it is personalfor every woman and every man, and it needs to be dealt with respectfully. meanwhile, president joe biden has been the clearest on his position, working with vice president harris to make reproductive rights a cornerstone of their re—election campaign. and on friday, women's reproductive rights in the us once again

made headlines after two of the nation's largest pharmacy retailers, cvs and walgreens, announced that they would begin selling the abortion pill mifepristone in states where the drug is legally allowed. walgreens says it will begin selling the drug within a week in five states. cvs told the washington post that it's working to secure the medication, but that it will begin filling prescriptions in massachusetts and rhode island in the weeks ahead and will expand to additional states. president biden applauded the decision. mifepristone is used in over half of all abortions in the united states and is at the centre of several legal challenges. the supreme court is set to hear a case that could significantly restrict access to the drug, with a decision is expected in june. for more on how all of this will play out with women voters, i spoke to republican strategist and president of marathon public affairs jeanette hoffman. let's just touch on the news coming out today — mifepristone becoming available in pharmacies in some states

here in the us, when at the same time we've got near total abortion bans in other states. what does this tell us about how polarised politics appear to be in this country right now, and how that is impacting women? this is exactly what has happened when roe v wade was overturned and everything went back to the states. in red states you're seeing major restrictions on abortion, on the abortion pill, and then in blue states you're seeing abortion is legal, the pill is legal and you're seeing people coming to those states when they need it to get the pill and to get abortion and as you said, it's playing out in elections, in mid—term elections. unfortunately, republicans lost seats over this issue. this is a very difficult issues for republicans to grapple with, particularly with the women's vote because, as you said, over 70% of all americans,

overwhelmingly women, want control of their bodies and want to have access to safe, legal abortions. as you say, that's an important point, particularly when we look at the midterms and what we saw transpire there, and then subsequently in other state races as well. i want to bring in some data that i find really interesting. it's actually from a gallup poll, and it's looking at the share of americans, aged 18—29, so gen z, who identify as liberal, and what it's showing is that young women now are 15 percentage points more likely to identify as liberal than men in that same group, and if you take a look at how that's changed over time, that gap is actually five times larger than what we saw in the year 2000. why do you think that is? like we said, abortion, that's a number one issue, women want control over their own bodies. women don't want to be told what to do. but also, this is the tiktok generation, right? they grew up on social media, they're fed algorithms of things they want to see

and it kind of bends to one particularly ideological trend. they also grew up in the me too generation too so that kind of trends with the liberal ideology. but i also think, you know, growing up in this time of roe v wade, that has a lot to do with it. the abortion issue definitely has a factor. i'm curious as to how you think this will continue to play out on the campaign trail. if we have a look at statements from trump, nikki haley, they've been vague when it comes to what they would like to see happen in regards to abortion. i just wonder what you think, going forward, looking at the data, we've got a birthrate dropping in this country, no federally mandated family leave, high childcare costs... if you've got anti—abortion republicans looking at these policies, couldn't they use those kind of policies instead when we know that — with the younger generation, for example, they're concerned about roe versus wade being overturned — to garner

more younger women voters? yes, and even trump's closer supporters have said we need to understand this issue and talk to women better because we're going to lose on it. year after year, if we don't. so i think it was kayleigh mcenany who said, you know, "we hear from women who say �*we don't want our daughters going to colleges in which abortion is restricted, we want them to go to states where something happens like this, they're able to take care of themselves�*". and of course no—one wants to have an abortion. it's not an ideal scenario. we want abortion to be safe, legaland rare, as in bill clinton's words, of course. we want to care for mothers, we want to care for women, we want to have better women's healthcare. and i also don't think that women only care about abortion, there are a lot of issues that women care about. i think republicans and democrats would do well to talk about a lot of different issues including crime, including the border which of course 70% of americans care about and think we should do more on,

but women's issues are very important in this upcoming election and republicans and democrats ignore them at their own peril. i do want to touch on nikki haley who said that she believes abortion right now, and those restrictions, should be decided with states but it does appear right now that trump will become the nominee, barring anything unforeseen. do you think nikki haley being a woman has impacted how voters in primary races feel about her? listen, i think nikki haley is a breath of fresh air. i think she's good for this primary debate in challenging trump on his positions but i think republican primary voters right now the president trump as the incumbent because he was the president, he lost the last election, a lot republican primary voters don't even believe he lost the election, which is a problem, but they want a rematch withjoe biden right now and that's why

nikki haley isn't doing as well as i think she would have. unfortunately, former president trump does take swipes at nikki haley being a woman — he kind of mocks her. i think that is a little unfortunate in place of her gender, but i think nikki haley in any other year would be more popular in the polls than she is now because republican primary voters just gravitate to donald trump as if he were the incumbent. jeanette, we have about 30 seconds left but ijust want to ask you, do you think america is ready for a woman in the white house? ithink so! i would love to see a woman in the white house. i don't think it's going to happen this election cycle. there's talk about whetherjoe biden drops out and kamala harris becomes the nominee. i'm not sure if that's going to happen or not. it's 2024. i think it's about time. we will see if that happens. alright, jeanette hoffman, republican strategist president of marathon public affairs. great to talk to you, thank you. thank you so much for having me. it's been a week of confusion

and distress for families in alabama currently going through ivf treatment. there is no greaterjoy than a family. we are all here to five ourfamilies. family. we are all here to five our families.— family. we are all here to five our families. we deserve to be able to make _ our families. we deserve to be able to make a _ our families. we deserve to be able to make a family - our families. we deserve to be able to make a family any - our families. we deserve to be able to make a family any way| able to make a family any way we can. ,, . able to make a family any way wecan. ,, ., , , we can. the senate passed bills on those they — we can. the senate passed bills on those they aimed _ we can. the senate passed bills on those they aimed at - on those they aimed at protecting ivf treatments and lawmakers see that the bills are a temporary fix to get ivf clinics to reopen right away and still have to be signed off on by the governor. its role as an unprecedented state supreme court ruling that said that frozen embryos are children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death. the ruling alarmed patients, healthcare providers and advocates who say the ruling will send liability costs sky—rocketing for clinics and make it more difficult for parents struggling with infertility to have children. so far only 16 seas of introduced personhood bills which could impact access to

ivf treatments. for more on this issue, i spoke to dr beth malizia, from alabama fertility, where she specialises in infertility and reproductive surgery. dr beth malizia, thank you forjoining us on bbc news. it must have been a very difficult, stressful couple of weeks for your patients, for yourself. just talk us through what the past few days have been like in the wake of that ruling from the state supreme court that embryos should be considered children. the last 1.5 weeks have been, as you can imagine, have been just heartbreaking for us as well as our patients. we have made many difficult phone calls to patients about what this means for them, for their treatment plan. we've made some small modifications in some patients' plans and many patients can continue to roll as we were. and some unfortunately have had to hit a soft hold why we talk with all of our advisers and figure out what all

of this means. so really lots of unknown circumstances here and lots of, as you can imagine, just emotional concern. and what we've seen now from alabama state lawmakers is they've put a bill forward to try and protect access to ivf and treatment. it does still need to be signed off by the governor. are you hopeful that treatment can resume for those who had to put it on pause? we have seen an absolute tremendous outpouring of support in the state as well as nationally, and internationally, for this topic. so i am overwhelmed by the support we've received, especially from patients, some of whom were directly affected by this ruling. we met at the state capital on wednesday and were able to speak in front of a crowd of patients, all dressed in their orange t—shirts. we walked through the statehouse, spoke with representatives and senators, attended the house and senate committee meetings where there were bills passed through those committees onto the floor and thankfully those were passed last week.

they're slightly different bills but they each have the opportunity to go to the other branch this coming week and we're very hopeful at least one of them will pass and be signed by the governor mid week. so we are cautiously optimistic, patients are continuing to pressure and push this in terms of importance to them. and of course as you know, this topic is all part of a broader debate going on in alabama right now, going on across the united states, in fact, in some political circles. those who brought this case forward to the state supreme court say this is about recognising foetal rights by recognising embryos as children. what do you say to them? i've tried very hard personally to keep this very directed about the care of ivf patients. the ability that we have to grow parents in the state is of paramount importance

to so many women and families. 42% of all people, all adults, say that they either have had fertility issues themselves or know someone who's undergone some fertility issues. and that number is likely even higher. there are many patients who don't talk about this stuff to theirfriends or even theirfamily members. so the importance of this is so extreme that we are trying very hard to ensure that what we're speaking about is access to fertility care, access for patients to grow their families. and so thinking about the future of ivf in your state and treatment commencing once again, do you think that there still could nevertheless be ramifications, some people have said, for example, that it could potentially be more expensive? i think that the unknown and the uncertainty of this ruling has really put us on a tailspin. and for patients as well as for practitioners, for our lab staff,

for our embryology folks, our lab director, our lawyers, there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty of what this means, so i think that likely remains. this bill, hopefully when passed, would give us some protection to be able to provide care for our patients. we have patients literally waiting on medicines and about to undergo treatment so we are very anxiously awaiting this as a way to at least get back to doing what we want to do. we, as much as i love this coverage and the national and international support, we really just want to take care of patients and get women and families the families they would like to have. so yes, i think there is a level of concern that this has raised within the fertility community and i think we've seen some international questions that surround that. i don't know that that's resolved next week but i hope at least what gets resolved in our ability to get back to work.

and talking about that concern, obviously you're there helping people to have children, to have families. you're there working in a red state. ijust wondered, did you ever anticipate anything like this happening? this decision from the alabama supreme court did come as quite a surprise to us. we were aware that there was a court case going on with the clinic elsewhere in the state but we were not aware that this had progressed to the alabama supreme court, so when the decision came out last friday, a week ago friday, we were quite concerned about what that might mean for us and for our patients especially. alright, dr malizia, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us here on bbc news. thank you so much for your time and your coverage of this important issue. the fallout from strict reproductive laws continue to be a reality for many women throughout the us. in fact, it is currently illegal for pregnant women in the us state of missouri to get divorce.

the law has been on the books since 1973. under current state law, the court must wait until after the woman gives birth in order to finalise child custody and child support agreements. republican state senator denny hoskin defended the law saying he'd be ok with allowing divorces in the case of abuse, he would not support allowing divorce during pregnancy. telling the kansas city star... three other states — texas, arizona, and arkansas — have similar laws, though when it comes to domestic violence, there are exceptions. earlier, i spoke to missouri state representative ashley awny, who's introduced a bill to overturn that law in her state. representative aune, thank you for being with us. just to begin with, sketch out the law for us as it currently stands in missouri? the current statute currently says that there are certain requirements

you have to meet in order for a judge to be able to finalise a divorce and one of those requirements is that a woman not be pregnant, essentially. and the reason for that is reallyjust a, you know, in the �*70s they believed that women who were mostly staying home at the time needed to make sure they were cared for during their pregnancy and they set up a custody plan and child support after the fact, so noble reasons originally but not quite working out in 202a. i'm curious, how did you find out about this? because i'd never heard of the law working in this way. so just tell us about that, and also, when you did find out more about it, what have women been telling you about how this has impacted them? i found out about it from local organisation that helps the domestic violence survivors here in my community in kansas city. they told me that this

was brought to them by several of their survivors. and they were seeing so many victims of reproductive coercion and were ending up stuck in marriages and not being able to get out of them, and they were struggling to find the resources to help these women. i was shocked when i found out about it. and since this bill has gotten so much attention, not only in the hearing where we heard from a survivor, but my e—mail box, my twitter dms have been filled with people reaching out and sharing their stories of surviving awful domestic violence and knowing that a law like this could help so many women in missouri. you used that term there, reproductive coercion. could use expand a little bit more on what that means? and of course this is in a context where in your state there in missouri, following roe v wade being overturned,

yet i understand you had a near almost total abortion ban being put in place, so how does that all interlink? after the decision came down, missouri signed one of the most draconian abortion bans in the country and, you know, we — the situation that we saw that it put women in in this state, fearing for their autonomy and the idea that women can't get out of a marriage just because they are pregnant and were in a state where we are forcing women to carry every pregnancy to term, the implications of that are that women are stuck in a marriage just if they're pregnant, and that is wild. it is 2024 and i can't believe that we're still in a situation where we are putting women in danger, frankly, and reproductive coercion

specifically is — it can look a lot of different ways. in the hearing for my bill, we heard from an expert who ran — well, actually, currently runs an offender rehabilitation programme. she hears from offenders, the methods that they use. things like tracking their partner's ovulation and menstruation, spousal rape, restricting birth—control or messing with someone's contraception, forcing someone to have an abortion or restricting access to an abortion. all these things can take place in an abusive relationship and the effects are absolutely devastating, not just for the woman who is in that situation but for her children and for her unborn child as well. you have put this bill forward. i'm curious to know what the response has been from your lawmaker colleagues, republicans as well.

honestly, i'm really proud that this is a bipartisan bill. i have two republican co—sponsors who actually sit in the committee with me, the committee that heard bill so they were in the room for this first hand experience, not only from a survivor before the folks who are working in our communities to help people are in domestic abuse situations. so i'm really proud know that this is a big common sense idea and a peaceable solution to a problem that plagues too many relationships. unfortunately, some members on the far right have pushed back, saying they don't believe this bill is necessary, and they are just really pushing the fact that the nuclear family should stay together. these are folks that probably don't believe that divorce should even exist at all. so you are seeing some pushback, you just mentioned there, from the far right.

how does the bill move forward from here then? you know, i'm not sure if it does. the fact of the matter is that i am a democrat in a very red state. missouri has a supermajority of republicans, so as a member of the super minority and someone who represents a 50—50 district, so that means i have to work really hard for every vote i get every two years, they don't want to give me a win. it is an election year. they don't want to give me a win, they don't want to bring my bill up for a vote and i think that's too bad. it has gotten so much attention, iwish, i really wish that they would hear the calls notjust from myself but from all of the missouri people who would be impacted by this bill. representative aune, thank you for taking the time to explain that bill to us, thank you. thank you. well, let's put all of this into context

globally because currently, a0 percent of women around the world live under restrictive abortion laws. but, the us is among only four countries that abortion access since 1994 — that's according to the council on foreign relations. meanwhile, 40 countries have taken steps to increase abortion access over the last three decades. including northern ireland which legalised abortion in 2019, overturning one of europe's most restrictive abortion laws. a kenya court expanded its abortion exception to include cases of rape in 2019. kenya also allows women to obtain the procedure in emergency cases or instances where the health of the mother is at risk. while in russia, authorities are limiting access to abortions in an attempt to confront the country's longstanding demographic crisis. and before we go, this week the french senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that would see it become the first country in the world to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right. speaks french it's likely to get the majority

it needs during a joint session of parliament on monday. president macron posted on x that he was committed to making abortion rights "irreversible". among the public, 86% of people back it. calling for it, french politicians have cited other countries, including the us, where the right to terminate a pregnancy had been taken away. i'll have more world news for you in 30 minutes' time. bye for now. hello. friday was the first day of meteorological spring — but it was also a day that winter refused to relinquish its grip. here in northern ireland, enniskillen, seeing a fresh fall of fairly chunky snow. there were also some snowfall over the peak district — this is the cat and fiddle road — road that goes between macclesfield and buxton — it's quite high up, but we had some problems reported on that, as well. low pressure then has been across the uk, with this cold air mass in place.

we've got lots of showers at the moment, particularly across england and wales, northern scotland, and this band of rain and hill snow across parts of the far north of england and southern scotland. now there is a chance of seeing a centimetre or two of snow across the cheviots, the north pennines, the southern uplands over the next hour or two, so it could get quite icy here. and also in the showers affecting the higher parts of wales — again, above 200 metres elevation, you might come across an odd centimetre or two of snow across the high ground here. temperatures getting close, if not below freezing in a few areas, so there will be a risk of a few icy patches heading into the first part of saturday morning. then we've got this clump of more organised showers working across wales in the midlands — well, they could have a bit of sleet or snow mixed in, probably struggling to settle, and quite a few of those showers will still have just cold rain. it is a day where showers will be really widespread on saturday, some of them with hail and thunder. and, although there'll be a bit of sunshine between the showers, those sunnier moments, probably quite short—lived. temperatures below average, about 6—9 celsius.

now, the same area of low pressure stays with us through saturday night and into sunday. it will tend to drift northwards, tending to weaken somewhat. and so, of the two days of the weekend, sunday looks like it's likely to be the better, in terms of weather. should be a fair bit of dryer weather after a locally misty and foggy start to the day, a better chance of seeing some sunshine. there'll still be a few showers around, particularly for scotland and northern ireland, 1—2 for wales and western england, but bigger gaps between those showers and a bit more in the way of sunshine. it will continue to feel cool though, for the time of year. into next week, low pressures continue to move in off the atlantic from the west, but they're running into this area of high pressure that's centred over scandinavia. and so, we'll get something of an east—west split with the weather. for western areas, it stays quite cloudy with the threat of further outbreaks of rain. eastern areas tending to become drier, sunnier, and a bit milder, as well. that's the latest, bye for now.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. i think the biggest climate issue is a bunch of egotistical men who refuse to change.

dia mirza is a well—known indian actor and film producer with a film career spanning over two decades, but she's also an outspoken advocate of the environment. bbc 100 women is focusing on climate change and we talked to dia mirza about why she's speaking out and her hopes for the future of the planet. hi, dia. hi, vandna. welcome and thank you for speaking with bbc 100 women. how are you? i'm very well, thank you, and i'm so happy to be talking to you. so, let's begin. if we look back at your childhood, how would you describe it compared, for example, to your son's childhood today? oh, my goodness. ah... i think i grew up — i mean, it's safe to say that i grew up in a time when nature

was in abundance.